The new fire station is one of the results of the gradual implementation of the Architectural Concept, which we developed for Úsilné in 2012 and which we are gradually fulfilling in its individual parts. We had started with a multi-purpose playground, continued with the fire station and we are preparing other buildings for the construction.

The new fire station stands on the periphery of the village next to the old fire station, which was always more of a background for athletes and other associations than a real fire station.

The fire station serves the Úsilné Volunteer Firefighters. The Volunteer Firefighters are a large association with many voluntary activities. So they need not only a garage, a workshop, but also a large common room where they hold meetings, install children’s bouncy castles, exhibitions and in the meantime park the old red and white Avia.

We have designed a building that does not raise expectations in terms of scale or appearance. It hides inside generous garage / hall spaces, smaller common rooms, workshops and facilities. Lapidary floor plan free of ballast. Gray concrete masonry, unsealed joints, rough seams and red floor.

There are several buildings, spaces and institutions in the vicinity of the Statenice square that play or in the future may play an important social role in the village and co-create its center.

The intention is that the individual parts are clear in their function and at the same time, co-create a strong and functional whole. What does it mean? Simply, for example, that every passer-by knows where he is and what the village square is. That he understands what the purpose of the village square is and finds the municipal office where he expects it to be, including finding the entry to it. In addition, it means that the user is just as intuitively oriented inside the building. However, clear orientation is not the only goal.
The second goal needed to be mentioned is to create a space for any occasion – that the correct setting of the space initiates events that we can only imagine at the moment. Whether it’s a pilgrimage in the castle garden, birthday parties or an open-air wedding. However, we do not only accommodate large events. We create spaces that encourage you to stay in the center on the way from school or work. To hang out with a bottle of beer in front of the grocery store or by the creek. Overall, it is important that the village square or the center is lively (which does not mean the permanent presence of carousels and crowds though).

We propose to calm traffic in the center of the village by introducing a 30 km/h zone from the narrowing of Statenická street near the castle to Sokolovna. We then “connect” the individual parts of the mentioned mosaic to it.

Part of the design is to verify the location of the town hall building, shop, community center, kindergarten and verify the possibilities of the Sokol gym building.

Proposal for the location of several important municipal buildings – primary school, municipal office, fire station, federal premises and collection yard with technical services, including modifications to selected public spaces.

We performed a revision of the designated location of the construction program. We verified its spatial requirements, connections and context, even in relation to the expected development of the village.

We propose the appropriate location and premises for individual parts of the program. A clear arrangement of public spaces and a clear layout of new buildings is important to us.

We are placing the municipal office in the area of the current Technical Center of the municipality, which together with the Fire station, the federal premises will become the new Administrative and Social Center of the municipality. In this way we respond to the planned development of the village to the southwest.

We place the technical and collection yard near the wastewater treatment plant. The elementary school logically gets the entire original campus, including the garden.

New-build bus terminal near the train station. It is a terminal with a two-way entry and an exit for buses. Five platforms in a row adjoin the railway station by the edge of the boarding platform.

The paved pre-station area is lined on the south by the station building, on the west by a wall with benches and a Bike+Ride area, on the northwest a park at Jana Švermy street leads to it, on the northeast is a restaurant with a corner bay window and on the east an allée. In this allée we keep the maximum of mature trees and supplement them with new plantings. The allée separates the terminal from the villas in Dvořákova street and provides shade for parked buses and cars.

It is important for us to perceive the main direction of walking when getting off the train or bus, i.e. Jana Švermy street with the adjacent park towards the cinema and further to the square, which co-creates the impression of the bus station. From the south-eastern corner, a pedestrian path from Harantova street leads to the area, complementing the third green axis, which opens into this area.

The design also includes covered waiting rooms, which in their form refer to the historical tubular urban furniture of the 1950s.

The proposal for the renovation of the perimeter cladding of the URAN administration building follows in principle on its original solution. It does not change the small scale of the composite parts of the cladding, it maintains the same ratio between the glazed and solid parts of the facade, it keeps the same proportions of windows and a significant horizontal division of the facade. The design also follows the original tectonic composition system. However, thanks to a different facade cladding material, the overall impression created by the house changes significantly.

The facade is lined with galvanized sheet metal. The surface of the facade is divided by the shadows of cornices, by windows, but also by individual pieces of sheet metal, joints between them, the grid of anchorages. The surface of the galvanized parts flashes in the light, the reflections differ in each plate. The house reflects and changes the changing light of the surroundings.

At the same time, the facade solution works with different depths of detail corresponding to the distances from which the building can be seen. Significant horizontal division and URAN inscriptions are visible at a distant view when arriving from the city center on the street 1. máje, when passing the highway from Prague and Zittau. Details of the pillar cladding, the canopy above the entrance and the individual torx heads of the sheet metal mounting bolts are visible at the entrance to the vestibule.

The presented facade solution also raises questions that the current solution has overlooked. Among them, the emphasis on the entrance to the building and the peculiarity of creating a unique building from an indifferent 1970s office building. A building, which reacts to the specific situation.